Kyle Parrino
Advanced Level Design
Spring 2011
Reflection Essay
This quarter in Advanced Level Design I will say that I learned a lot, but that I expected more. It
was just like taking Level Design but in a different engine. I learned more about game engines in the
class than I did level design, I would have preferred taking it more advanced in UDK than starting over
from scratch in Unity. I did like the opportunity to learn the basics in another engine to expand my
chances of finding a job by having more experience, but it seems that to properly utilize Unity I would
need a crash course in Java Script otherwise there's really no way to fully utilize its ability to create
your own attributes and with such little time to create game assets concept and plan there is no time to
even take in the basics of Java Script and test it. I had to make something so basic and simple because I
knew I wouldn't have time to learn to write script, implement it, test it and get it all working.
Overall I would say that the class was good if it were to just teach the basics of Unity but it
didn't really “Advance” much passed level design. I enjoyed the time in class I had fun working on the
project but I don't feel that I accomplished as much as I should have. I want to say that if I wasn't
required to have some sort of organic shapes to the environment that I could have geared it more
towards stuff that I like. I would have liked to of been able to focus more on the actual design of the
level and game play than the asset style I'm required to have. While on the topic I would like to make a
suggestion for a texture class just for game art students for game safe textures and how to manipulate
them after importing into the engine. While taking both team production and advanced level design I
realize that there is a large lack of experience amongst a large majority of the classes in the texture
process of game assets.
The game level I made didn't come out fully how I wanted it to most of the ideas I had for it
went to team production considering how similar the ideas ended up being, I felt they better suited that
class would use my ideas to the full extent where on my own they wouldn't have been nearly as flushed
out. I admit most of my work time was spent on team production projects I have been more enticed by
that class since were working as a group, I also feel I learned more working with a group than on my
own because I pay attention more to how they do something and am able to break it down on
improving my own work.
All in all class was fun I came out with some experience in Unity, some more game assets, and
some more knowledge on what I need to look into if I want to expand my knowledge of programing in
Unity.
